In the following, an acquaintance from Malcolm’s past–Martina–has shown up at Winterlight with two new horses. She knows nothing about them or equines in general. This scene is her first time trying to work with one of them.

Martina stood on her toes as Eli walked a circle around her. She flashed a grin at us—at Malcolm—and shook her hair back, every inch the confident horsewoman, as if she’d done this a million times, as if she weren’t clueless. Clearly, she’d studied the art of fake it til you make it.

Or maybe this small act made her feel as if she’d accomplished something. Baby steps.

Eli walked around her a few times, keeping to the end of the line as he should. She watched him intently, and I sensed a coiling inside her, as if she struggled to fetter a dark force within—like Eli—pretty on the surface, but muddled within by conflicting desires and goals.

I thought she’d quit after this mild success, but instead, she lifted the whip, clucked, and shouted, “Trot.”

“What the hell?” It really irritated me when people ignored my instructions.

“Didn’t you tell her to keep him to walk?” Malcolm asked.

Eli charged into a ground-eating trot. Martina tucked the loops of line under her arm, clapped, and shrieked “Good boy.” Then, inexplicably, she somehow cracked the whip.

Eli’s tail went up, his muscles bunched, and he leaped into the air with all four feet, performing a spectacular capriole before landing and taking off, bucking like a bronc straight out of the gate.

“Shit.”

I started running. Malcolm vaulted the gate right behind me.

Gone was the gelding’s meandering zig-zag. Gone was the barely jogging Western pleasure gait. He shot toward the far end of the ring. I’d shown Martina how to hold the line, how not to put her hand through the handle, but not when to let go. The line snapped taut. She jerked into the air and landed with a thud and a yelp. I wouldn’t have been surprised if her shoulder was dislocated. She hung on as Eli dragged her straight toward…Oh. My. God.

“Let go,” I yelled.

My thoughts spun to Eli hurting his legs as he bolted right into the swamp hole. Desperate to avoid disaster, I telegraphed a message to him, a warning of the danger, an internal shout to stop, but he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, hear me.